Notes for Mary Coffin:
       She was known to fellow Nantucketeers as "Mother Mary" or the "Great Woman". She managed. or at least was
bookkeeper, for her husband's general store. Her fame came primarily from her conversion to Quakerism after hearing English
"Friends" Thomas Chalkley and John Richardson preach on their separate visits to the island. She led a wave of conversions to
the new religion which soon became the major one on Nantucket. She served as clerk of the Women Quaker's meeting and was
the first minister. Richardson wrote in his journal that she seemed to him to be considered an unofficial judge for the Island and
that nothing important was done without first consulting her.

Notes for Nathaniel Starbuck:
source: STARBUCK'S ALL, by James Carlton Starbuck

Nathaniel's marriage was the first one on Nantucket and his daughter, Mary, was the first white child born there. He ran a
trading post, where Indians swapped codfish and feathers (used in mattresses) for cloth, hooks, buttons, etc. When Ichabod
Paddock of Cape Cod introduced whaling to Nantucket, it was Nathaniel who financed the venture. Due to Nathaniel's whaling
interests, land holdings, and store profits, he became one of the wealthiest men--if not the wealthiest man, on the island. So
much public business was conducted at his home that it became known as "Parliament House". It was also there that
Wuakerism took root on Nantucket thanks mostly to the leadership of his wife, whose importance and fame quite outshone his
own not inconsiderable accomplishments.